The Truth About Keeping Secrets(79)

I hoisted myself up to meet her and mirrored her position, my legs criss-crossed. And then we just looked at each other, and I took in all the things that I couldn’t before, for fear of being caught staring. ‘That sounds nice,’ I said. Then, maybe because the weight of the situation was starting to become uncomfortable, or to take the attention off me, ‘Let me feel your head.’

June scoffed, but leaned forward.

‘It does look good,’ I said. I dragged my fingertip along the patch, careful not to touch the stitches.

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure it goes with my aesthetic.’

‘There’s this joke: what do you call a straight girl with an undercut?’

June blinked.

‘A liar.’

She snorted. ‘Well, maybe it goes fine, then.’

That was when we kissed, hard.

Her hands wrapped round my biceps and squeezed as we did, and I felt all of her; her hair on my face and her nose smushed against mine and the softness of her lips and everything, everything, and I wanted to melt into her, and I wanted to live tucked in her eyelids. One kiss, then her mouth contorted and there was another, and another, and she smelled like sweat and the hospital and it was wonderful, and I’d never kissed someone like this, it went on forever, and for a millisecond and a Big Bang and an entropy and it was so much more than I ever could have wanted even though it was nothing like I had imagined.

She stirred against me in a way that felt encouraging so I continued, exploring everything previously untouchable. At one point I accidentally brushed against her cast and she unlocked from me for a moment, said, laughing, ‘Oh God, that’s probably the least sexy thing ever,’ but it wasn’t really, not even close, and I pulled her to me again.

We were here now. A billion years had led to this and there’d be a billion years to come but right now we were here, and with my lips on hers I was trying to tell her thank you, thank you, thank you, in the smallest way, in this small moment, and I think maybe she was doing the same thing. For both of us, this was our first act of freedom.

When we finally pulled apart, her eyes crinkled at the corners and she threw herself back on to the bed; I followed, engulfed by a pain that was no longer pain but pure intensity of feeling. ‘I feel so light,’ she breathed into my ear.

‘Me too.’

I got the inexplicable sense of being underwater, or in space – of a weightlessness which required you to hold your breath.

And there we were, the two of us, clutching my duvet while the world spun underneath us, and we were there for no reason, no reason at all; the same random events that had killed Dad had jolted us awake, and brought us here. I thought back to the first week after he died, thinking then that there was no feeling quite so strong as misery, but here, there was something greater, greater than ecstasy and misery and not on the scale. It wasn’t neutral, not nothing, not a compromise between the two: it was separate and hollering and lovely.

Peace, peace, peace.

‘Whitaker,’ she said, ‘how did we get here?’

I did not have an answer for her besides my hands in her hair and the moonlight on her face.





Chapter 19


A month later, I barrelled through the front doors of Pleasant Hills High with a scar on my cheek, a skip in my step and a USB stick clutched firmly in my left fist.

Leo and I had a plan.

We weren’t sure it was a good plan, or even a viable plan, but it was nonetheless a plan. And we only had one shot to get it right.

His footsteps echoed beside mine on the vinyl floor as we shot through the empty hallways. I could tell he was nervous because he wasn’t really speaking; he was worried about getting caught. That hadn’t really been a concern of mine, because the one person I’d worried about finding out already had. Mom found Leo and me scheming a couple of days after he’d managed to pull the file from my phone’s mangled hard drive. I’d pleaded with her, expecting her to put on some big song and dance, but she just stood and listened, sipping her coffee. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

It makes sense, though. She was pissed off when we took the file to the police and they’d taken it, but sort of half-heartedly, like nothing would come of it. So we decided some vigilante justice was in order.

The graduation ceremony had already begun.

It wasn’t really the sort of plan that required Excel spreadsheets or precise timing. All we needed to know was that we had the file, and that Olivia would be there to open the door.

A week after the night of the crash she’d slipped a piece of notebook paper into my mailbox, folded into a triangle: sydney,

ur mom told my mom what happened and then my mom told me. u might not believe me when i say it but i’m glad ur ok. june too. like, really glad.

i think maybe stuff has gotten a bit too complicated and that our friendship was becoming more work than a good friendship should. and i don’t rly think it was anyone’s fault which honestly might be the worst part. it’s just sad, u know. so. i don’t really know what the answer is. idk if there is an answer. we can talk about it, if u want.

regardless of what happens between us i propose one last hurrah so we can nail this clown for good. idk the whole story obviously but i guess i wanna help u make things right.

So we did talk. It was ridiculously awkward at first but eventually we settled into it, made old jokes, and decided that maybe we’d try again. Take it slow and all that. No obligations. Because we weren’t sure we wanted to lose each other for good. And as we were talking about what we could do, I told her about the video Leo had managed to retrieve from that night, and she realized: the ring of keys she had for all her theatre tech stuff included the projection booth.